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1839
Year 1839 (MDCCCXXXIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a common year starting on Sunday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). Events of 1839 January - March * January 9 - The French Academy of Sciences announces the Daguerreotype photography process. * January 19 - British East India Company captures Aden * January 20 - In the Battle of Yungay, Chile defeats a Peruvian and Bolivian alliance. * February 11 - The University of Missouri is established, becoming the first public university west of the Mississippi River. * February 24 - William Otis receives a patent for the steam shovel. * March 5 - Longwood University founded, Farmville, Virginia. * March 7 - Baltimore City College, the third public high school in the United States, is established in Baltimore, Maryland. * March 23 - First recorded use of "OK" oll korrect (Boston Morning Post). * March 26 - The first Henley Royal Regatta is held * March 29 - British naturalist Charles Darwin marries his cousin Emma Wedgwood. April - June * April - Sultan Mahmud II of Turkey declares war on Mehemet Ali of Egypt in revenge. * April 9 - The world's first commercial electric telegraph line comes into operation alongside the Great Western Railway line from Paddington station to West Drayton. * April 19 - The Treaty of London establishes Belgium as a kingdom. * June 22 - Louis Daguerre receives patent for his camera (commercially available by September with the prize of 400 Francs) July - September * July 1 **Slave rebellion of Amistad **Change of emperor of the Ottoman Empire from Mahmud II (1808-1839) to Abd-ul-Mejid (1839-1861). * July 23 - British forces capture the fortress city of Ghazni, Afghanistan in the Battle of Ghazni during the First Anglo-Afghan War * August 8 - The Beta Theta Pi fraternity was founded in Oxford * August 19 - French government gives Louis Daguerre a pension and gives the daguerreotype "for the whole world" * August 23 - British forces seized Hong Kong as a base, as it prepared to wage war against Qing China. The ensuing 3-year conflict would become known as the First Opium War. October - December * October 3 - In the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies a railway between Napoli and Portici (7.4 km length) is inaugurated by H.M. the King Ferdinand II of Bourbon. It is the first railway in the Italian peninsula. * November 4 – The Newport Rising was the last large-scale armed rebellion against authority in mainland Britain. * November 11 - The Virginia Military Institute is founded in Lexington, Virginia. * November 17 - Giuseppe Verdi's first opera, Oberto, conte di San Bonifacio opens in Milan. * November 25 - A disastrous cyclone slams India with terrible winds and a giant 40 foot storm surge, wiping out the port city of Coringa. 300,000 people die. * November 27 - In Boston, the American Statistical Association is founded Undated * In the United States, the first state law permitting women to own property is passed in Jackson. * The first parallax measurement of the distance to Alpha Centauri is published by Thomas Henderson. * Michael Faraday publishes "Experimental Researches in Electricity" clarifying the true nature of electricity. * Excavation on Copan begins. * Half of the Limburg province of Belgium was added to the Netherlands, since 1839 there is a Belgian Limburg and Dutch Limburg. * Abd al-Kader declares a jihad against the French. * Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Virginia is founded. * Charles Goodyear vulcanizes rubber. Ongoing events * First Opium War (1839-1842) Births January - June *January 19 - Paul Cézanne, French painter (d. 1906) *February 11 - Josiah Willard Gibbs American physicist and chemist (d. 1903) *February 22 - Francis Pharcellus Church, American editor and publisher (d. 1906) *March 9 - Phoebe Knapp, American hymn writer (d. 1908) *March 16 - John Butler Yeats, Northern Irish artist (d. 1922) *March 21 - Modest Mussorgsky, Russian composer (d. 1881) *April 12 - Nikolai Przhevalsky, Russian explorer (d. 1888) *April 30 - Floriano Peixoto, Brazilian president (d.1895) *June 17 - Arthur Tooth, Anglican clergyman prosecuted for Ritualist practices in the 1870s (d. 1931) *June 21 - Machado de Assis, Brazilian author (d.1908) July - December *July 8 - John Davison Rockefeller, American industrialist and philanthropist (d. 1937) *July 17 - Ephraim Shay, inventor of the Shay locomotive (d. 1916) *November 20 - Christian Wilberg, German painter (d. 1882) *December 5 - George Armstrong Custer, American cavalry officer (d. 1876) *December 12 - Caroline Lake Ingalls, née Quiner, mother of author Laura Ingalls Wilder (d. April 20, 1924) : See also 1839 births. Deaths January - June * February 7 - Karl August Nicander, Swedish poet (b. 1799) * April 1 - Benjamin Pierce, U.S. politician (b. 1757) * April 2 - Hezekiah Niles, American editor and publisher (b. 1777) * April 11 - John Galt, Scottish novelist (b. 1779) * April 22 - Denis Davydov, Russian general and poet (b. 1784) * May 17 - Archibald Alison, Scottish author (b. 1757) July - December * August 10 - John St Aubyn, British fossil collector (b. 1758) * August 22 - Benjamin Lundy, American abolitionist (b. 1789) * August 28 - William Smith, English geologist and cartographer (b. 1769) * October - William Light, British Army colonel and the first Surveyor-General of South Australia (b. 1786) * November 15 - William Murdoch, Scottish inventor (b. 1754) * December 3 - Frederick VI, King of Denmark, ex-King of Norway (b. 1768) * December 15 - Ignaz Aurelius Fessler, court councillor and minister to Alexander I (b. 1756) : See also 1839 deaths.